This week we look at the Pink 6, one of Christa’s early original cocktails. Because Pink 6’s are quite tasty and we drink them a lot, we’re constantly noodling with which gin makes the “best” Pink 6. So this week we decided to start documenting our results, starting with Ebb+Flow, Amethyst, and Soft Gin. If you’d like to know more about each of these gins, please check out our Washington gin showcases parts one, two and four respectively.

We created the Pink 6 back when we had just started down our journey to cocktail nerd-dom. We had discovered St. Germain, and were probably over-using it a bit. It is bartender’s ketchup after all :). At about that time, we had also acquired some Creme Yvette from out of state, which is a lovely violet and berry liqueur made by the same producer. Christa had the brilliant idea of using St. Germain and Creme Yvette together with gin and lime to create a riff on the Vieux Mot. (Shaun’s note: despite us overusing St. Germain from time to time :), this is one of my favorites of our original cocktails.)

Why did we name it the Pink 6? At the time, we were in heavy experimentation mode. We were coming up with all sorts of crazy cocktails, but not really taking the time to name them. So we were naming them Unknown followed by a number. This cocktail happened to be #6 in our trajectory. Once we reached Unknown 12 or there about we decided that we needed to start actually naming the ones we thought were good enough to make again. This drink is, well, quite pink, and it was Unknown 6, so Pink 6 seemed an obvious choice :)

The Pink 6

2 oz gin

3/4 oz St. Germain

3/4 oz lime juice

1/4 oz Creme Yvette

Shake with ice, strain into a glass, garnish with a cherry.

The Gins

Ebb + Flow

Nose: Lime, violet, creamy lemon. Hints of juniper and orris root.

Palate: Sweet, well-integrated floral and lemon flavors start on the intro and carry into the finish. Lime grows from subtle in the intro to peaking at the mid-palate, providing balance so it’s not too sweet. Juniper and other gin botanicals show up on the fairly dry finish. As it warms up, perfume-y vetiver and lemon peel notes get stronger on the finish.

Amethyst

Nose: Lime, bracken, lavender, little bit of black pepper.

Palate: Starts with fairly sweet berry and cherry notes on the front. Very floral mid-palate with lots of lavender plus some elderflower and honey is followed by an astringent kick of lime on the finish. Like the Ebb+Flow version, well-integrated. The lavender notes increase as it warms.

Soft Gin

Nose: Strong grape-y notes like grappa (not surprising since the Soft Gin is grape-based) along with lime and tarragon. More subtle fruity and faintly astringent notes like apple cider vinegar as well as some earthiness.

Palate: Lime and tarragon to start and then strong, clear juniper on the mid-palate. More tarragon on the finish. Grape brandy notes underpinning the herbal flavors throughout. Heavy, almost viscous mouth feel. This version is much more herbal than the other two. Quite tasty if a bit unexpected, given the way the Soft Gin moves the drink into a savory space despite the sweet floral liqueurs.

We got a nice range of flavors along the sweet/savory spectrum for this round of Pink 6 experimentation. All three iterations of the drink are really quite tasty, and which one either of us might choose as our favorite would almost certainly vary from week to week ;) One of the things we both like about this cocktail is that it is fairly forgiving, and the base spirit always has a chance to shine through; most gins make a very nice Pink 6, it’s just that they all make very different ones. We hope you try this recipe with your favorite gin and let us know what you get.

Authors

About Us

Christa and Shaun discovered that they have a shared passion, some might say obsession, for good booze, cocktails and food. This blog chronicles their further explorations and adventures tasting, mixing and enjoying yummy and sometimes not so yummy booze.

Be nerdy like us.

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.